New Perspectivism and Federal Vision Today

From the desert metropolis of Phoenix, Arizona, this is

The Dividing Line. The Apostle Peter commanded Christians to be ready to give a defense for the hope that is within us, yet to give that answer with gentleness and reverence.

Our host is Dr. James White, director of Alpha Omega Ministries and an elder at the Phoenix Reformed Baptist Church.

This is a live program and we invite your participation. If you'd like to talk with Dr. White, call now at 602 -973 -4602 or toll -free across the

United States. It's 1 -877 -753 -3341. And now with today's topic, here is

James White. Hey, good morning, welcome to The Dividing Line on a Tuesday morning, as you have seen from the blog, at least

I hope you have seen from the blog, an unusual program today. Now here's an introduction,

I've told folks about the weirdest introduction I ever got, and that was at a

Founders Conference meeting, where the pastor of the church got up and read all the negative stuff that I used to have on my bio that starts off, you know,

Gail Ripplinger says he's a serial soul killer, and Patrick Madrid says he's this, that, and this

Mormon says that, and then it started to get nice after that. Well, he just read down to the last nasty comment and said, here's

James White, and sat down. So that was the weirdest introduction I ever had. So I was just about to say, today, we're going to take a break from listening to John Shelby Spong and Barry Lynn and talk with Sam Waldron and Richard Braselis, but I'm not sure that they would really appreciate that a whole lot, so maybe

I won't do that. In fact, maybe I should go ahead and put them on the air so I don't hear a click, and they just all of a sudden disappear.

But how are you gentlemen doing today? We're fine, James, nice to talk to you. It's good to talk to you, gentlemen.

We're sort of taking over the program today for the Reformed Baptist cause, I guess you might say.

Let me introduce my guest today. Do I go by height or by fame?

I'm not sure how to do this. I guess I'll just go with what Richard sent me here. By age. Age? I'll let you two fight that one out.

We are actually talking to two of the primary folks at the Midwest Center for Theological Studies.

Sam Waldron is the professor of Systematic Theology and the dean there, and Richard Braselis is a part -time lecturer in New Testament and an administrative assistant, which means if this phone call fails, it's all his fault.

The dean always gets to blame somebody else. They are working together with folks like Tom Nettles and Tom Askell and Fred Malone, Don Whitney there in the heartland, the flyover area if you're in California or in New York, but for real

Americans, the heartland of the United States. Both have extensive experience in preaching and ministry.

Both have, for example, been down in Hispanic areas, the

Dominican Republic, Colombia, doing a lot of teaching down there to pastors, and I'm sure they can tell us about the hunger that those men have for solid materials on the

Word of God. I remember getting to speak at the Field Conference down in Brazil a couple of years ago and just how wonderful it was to talk with those gentlemen there, even when you had to do that through translation, which

I don't know if you've ever in the audience ever done that before, but let me tell you something, if you're accustomed to preaching and then all of a sudden you preach for your first time with translation, you feel like you are a novice once again.

You lose all capacity for pacing and everything else. It's really something you have to learn over time to be able to do.

But both gentlemen have specific areas of expertise. Some of you may know that Richard Braselis is the prime mover behind the

Reformed Baptist Theological Review, which I have mentioned a number of times and in fact have written just a couple little things for over the course of the past couple of years, and so they are my guests today on the

Dividing Line. So I'm going to start with an easy softball question here for Dr.

Waldron, and that is, Dr. Waldron, would you say that N .T.

Wright is to today's theological realm what Karl Barth was in the 1980s?

Oh, that's a great question. I'm not quite sure what you mean or have in mind by the comparison, but there are a lot of similarities in the sense that I think both are the avenue for introducing into Evangelicalism ideas that originated outside Evangelicalism are very un -Evangelical.

Right. Well, that's what I had in mind. When I did my first master's degree at Fuller Seminary, the very name

Barth was said with hushed and reverential tones, and that seems to be the case today.

Just last evening in our chat channel, I had one seminarian at Gordon -Conwell come in and mention that basically if N .T.

Wright says it, it's to be believed and respected and so on and so forth. And then another student from a

Christian college came in and said that in their basic theology class they're reading N .T.

Wright. And so it just seems that there is this massive door that has swung open in broad

Evangelicalism in the United States in regards to N .T. Wright. And some of your writing and studying has specifically been in the area of the new perspective on Paul.

And so I was really going for, is the work that he has done worthy of the massive amount of obeisance that is given to him within scholarship in the

United States? Well, no, I don't think so. I understand some of the reasons for it.

I think Evangelicals today crave for a wider acceptance, and N .T.

Wright on some issues says things and says them attractively that Evangelicals could agree with and do agree with, but on the whole, absolutely not.

His rendition of justification by faith alone, which is, as Dr. Nettles last night in our

Monday evening class said so clearly, is essential to what it means to be Evangelical, is very un -Evangelical, and not at all within the

Reformed or even Protestant tradition. You know, I was speaking at the

Metropolitan Tabernacle School of Theology a few weeks ago, well, months ago now,

I guess, in London, and in speaking with Peter Masters, speaking with my other friends there in the

UK, they are absolutely befuddled as to why in the world

American Evangelicals, even American conservative Evangelicals, give to Wright the celebrity status and the view of him as a relative conservative.

That is not how he is viewed in the UK itself, which is odd, given the fact that that's where he lives and works and speaks and so on and so forth, but they literally laugh when

I report to them the kind of adoration that is given to his writings and to everything that he says, and they just shake their heads and say, you don't understand, the man's not

Evangelical at all, he's not even particularly conservative, he's a good old Anglican, and they start going through all this stuff, and they've heard him, they get to hear him on a much more regular basis, and yet, let's face it, over here, when he comes over, he's invited to speak at, well,

I'm sure you found fascinating, just last, was it January of 2005, or was it

January of this year that he spoke at the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church Conference? I heard that. I actually, the only time

I actually heard Wright in person was actually at the Evangelical Theological Society meetings, and I'm not sure if it was actually

ETS that invited him to speak, but there was a big general session, and he spoke at it.

Yeah, yeah, and it's, in those contexts, there's no question about the man's brilliance, there wasn't any question about Karl Barth's brilliance either, then again, there's no question about the relative brilliance of Pope Benedict or anything else,

I mean, there's brilliant people on all levels of life and every spectrum of theology, that doesn't seem to be, that's what frightens me, is that all of a sudden, brilliance seems to be more important than orthodoxy and sound biblical teaching and reasoning, and it seems to me that a lot of this is coming from an evangelical realm of scholarship that is absolutely desperate for recognition in worldly scholarship, in worldly academia.

I think that's it, and the fact that he'll defend some form of the resurrection of Christ is so, it just kind of disarms them and moves them to want to embrace him and either to overlook or even subtly embrace some of the dangerous errors that he teaches with regard to justification and other issues.

That does seem to be what's going on, I mentioned that in my preparation for my debate with John Dominick Crossan and Marcus Borg, I was joined in that debate on the resurrection by someone that both of you gentlemen know very well, obviously,

Jim Renahan, and listening to him debate,

N .T. Wright debate John Dominick Crossan, sometimes you're sitting there going, yeah, oh, oh, oh, that's brilliant, oh, excellent, that's great, and then within sometimes 60 seconds, 120 seconds, you're sitting there going, what?

What did he just say? I mean, just from what sounds like an ultra -conservative statement like, we don't know when the

Gospels were, we don't know what order they were in, we don't know if there was a queue and all the rest of this stuff, and you're sitting here going, wow, that's amazing, and then two minutes later, he's sitting there talking about how

Lazarus actually didn't die, that he did not cease to have physical life, that this was not a resurrection, it was a resuscitation, and you're sitting there going, what?

Even Marcus Borg's response to him was, well, what was the point of Lord, he stinketh?

I mean, you know, just these really obvious things, and it just seems that people hear the one, and they're, why are they so desperate, is there such a lack of sound and passionate and communicative leadership within the evangelical realms and academia, that we're just willing to reach out and grab almost anything that's out there, especially if it has a

British accent? I understand, I understand what you're saying, you know, I had a similar experience.

The actual talk he gave at ETS was well -delivered, it was something

I thoroughly agreed with, he was talking about the importance of a new earth, physical eschatology, and the danger of a kind of platonic stream creeping into Christian eschatology, all of that I agreed with, and it was done brilliantly and very attractively, and I think, but I think you're right,

I think the thing is, there is a lack of leadership, and people that are thirsty for someone who can speak attractively and brilliantly are just gravitating to him.

Now, either one of you can take this, because I know the RBTR, Reformed Baptist Theological Review, has dedicated a number of articles to this, but we briefly touched upon the new perspective, we recognize the danger of it, both of you having extensive experience within Reformed Baptist theological circles, and the

Reformed Evangelical circles as well, and interaction with our Presbyterian brothers, things like that.

Is the new perspective, is that something that is primarily, in your opinion, a danger to one sector of Reformed Evangelicalism in the

United States, or are our Presbyterian brothers more subject to this than Reformed Baptists, or is it, in your opinion, more of a broad -ranged type of a danger?

It's interesting, isn't it, it does seem to appeal, and some of the major people that I know that have been affected by it are

Reformed Evangelicals, or at least have that reputation. You know,

I think that there is a broad appeal, I'm going to let Richard give his opinion about this, because he may have some experience,

I don't, but there certainly is a broad appeal of the new perspective to Evangelicalism as a whole.

In my dissertation, I critiqued both Don Garlington and Daniel Fuller, neither of them are identified with the

Presbyterian tradition per se, I'm not sure what Daniel Fuller's affiliation was, except with Fuller Theological Seminary, and I also critiqued

Norm Shepard. Now, Shepard and Fuller are not new perspective in a strict sense, they kind of predate the new perspective, but some of their views land them in the same place on justification.

Yeah, very much so, in fact, it's hard to keep track of who's who without a scorecard, and I think that's left a lot of interested laymen somewhat out of the debate, because there are so many variations, there unfortunately have been many people who have identified

Federal Visionism as new perspectivism without making the necessary distinctions, yeah, they come to some similar conclusions, but they get there from a very different road, and because of all of that, there's a tremendous amount of confusion, and it's hard to defend against something when even your best laypeople in your congregation really don't have a grasp as to who's coming from where, and they go, well, you know,

I really enjoyed this book by Douglas Wilson, now you're telling me he's saying this, and do

I really have to be careful of everything I read? There's a lot of confusion that exists in this area, and I was just wondering, that's why

I was asking you guys, do you feel this really is something that, for Reformed Baptists, is more of a theological novelty, or is there a danger of this type of stuff actually arising within our fellowships, too?

Let me push the big guy aside here. Hey, James and Sam might know this as well, you both might know this, but Don Garlington, as far as I know, is still a

Baptist, and Daniel Fuller would at least be Baptistic, so I think it would be unfair to say that Baptists are immune from this kind of thing, or to say that Presbyterians are more open to it because of their doctrine of the

Covenant or something, though that might well be in some specific instances, but I think we need to be careful throwing a general blanket over it and saying one person is more susceptible than another theologically, as far as the theological camp goes.

Just this week, I was stacking some books from a Reformed Baptist pastor who sold us his books, and he had a lot of N .T.

Wright books, I was a little troubled by that. Well, so do I, so that's not necessarily... Well, that's the way

I took it, not necessarily, but if I told you more of the story, you'd be concerned, too. Yes, yes. So I don't think it's as simple as, you know,

Pato -Baptist Covenant theologians are more open to it than non -Pato -Baptist

Covenant theologians. Well, let me ask you this, and both of you are aware of this, so we can get a little bit more specific here.

Do you feel that it is easier, given the, as you both know, and the difference between the

Westminster Confession of Faith and the London Baptist Confession of Faith, especially in regards to the Article on Justification, is the specific utilization of imputational terminology in the

London Baptist Confession that is not in the Westminster Confession? It was discussed, but there are people who objected to especially the use of the active and passive obedience distinctions, and so would you say that, would it be a true or false statement that a person who subscribes to the 1689

London Baptist Confession of Faith could not embrace the new perspective in an honest fashion? Oh, I think that's true, but I guess there'd be a lot of Presbyterians that would want to say that neither could somebody that honestly embraced the

Westminster. Although it is, there is a sense, by way of using that active and passive obedience terminology, that it puts it, it makes it much more clear.

I heard a tape by someone involved in the Westminster Project exploring the origin of the

Westminster Confession, and he was admitting that some of the terminology in the

Westminster was compromised terminology, and though I don't think that justifies a new perspective reading of the

Westminster, the use of the terms active and passive obedience and blood and righteousness of Christ and the way they are added to the

Second London is significant and helpful. Yeah, oh yeah, there's no question about it, and that whole area itself, maybe you both would like to comment on this, because I know

Richard has addressed this subject. That whole area, maybe you both would like to comment on what seems to be an unusual situation within, again, our theological realm, and that is there seems to be a willingness to readdress issues that had been settled in the past, and especially this issue of imputation, the concept, what it means, the distinction between active and passive obedience.

There are attacks upon these concepts from every corner, not only from the new perspective corner, but you have, for example,

Andy Snyder at the Master's Seminary and his dispensational rejection of the concept of the active and passive obedience of Christ based upon strictly dispensational concepts.

You have the New Covenant theology denial of the concept of the active and passive obedience because of the sticky problem that you come up with when you say, well, how can our righteousness, the righteousness that we have in standing before God, how can that have been worked out by Christ in his active obedience to the

Mosaic law? That would be an inconsistency from some New Covenant perspectives, and so you've got that stuff going on, and you've got just all sorts of different takes today.

It's hardly surprising that lay people and pastors are quite confused as to whether they should be preaching as pastors should be preaching clearly the idea that the only righteousness that avails before God is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us by faith.

What is the nature of that righteousness? What kind of a state does that righteousness put us into? Does it simply bring us back to a moral neutral point that we then have to fulfill covenant works of righteousness?

I mean, these are all issues that have real practical and pastoral implications.

What do you all want to add to that particular observation? I agree with James.

Thank you. I think that this doesn't answer all the particular issues that you're bringing up in that last array of statements there, but in my thinking and studying and reading and discussing and interacting with various people,

I think that the doctrine of justification, in order to be consistently adhered to, has to have as a background an understanding of what was taking place in the

Garden of Eden. It starts with Adam and then, of course, Adam's sin and failure to uphold the principles of righteousness that God gave him, whatever you want to call it, covenant of works.

I think if you get that wrong, then you're going to go askew, go wrong in a lot of other places.

You know, Romans chapter 5, if you don't understand Romans chapter 5, it goes farther back, by the way, than the

Mosaic Law. It goes all the way back to Adam as a covenant of federal head. And so, once you get that wrong,

I think you're going to go wrong. I know you're going to go wrong someplace down the line, and you're going to conflate and confuse justification and sanctification at some point, and we see that happening as well today in various circles.

Let me just add to that, maybe recommend to your listeners here, on the

MCTS website, which is MCTSowensboro .org,

there's a paper that one of my students and I co -authored. It's an attempt to kind of re -couch and repackage what the

Puritans call the covenant of works, and deal with the whole issue of Adam and the obedience he owed to God, answer some of the modern objections to the

Puritan doctrine of the covenant of works, and show that it still stands as a necessary foundation.

That paper can be found on the website, and it's entitled, and he will be my son. And that's

MCTSowensboro, is O -W -E -N -S -B -O -R -O, not

B -O -R -O -U -G -H, or anything else, dot org, and you can find that information there.

I'm speaking with Sam Waldron and Richard Bercellus, calling from, I would imagine, maybe the facilities there.

I'm not sure exactly where you're located right now, but calling via speakerphone, which thankfully sounds very good.

We can understand both of you very well. And we are certainly open to taking your calls as well at 877 -753 -3341, 877 -753 -3341, if you would like to speak with our guests today and discuss these issues with us.

The New Perspective on Paul, Richard Bercellus is the editor of the Reformed Baptist Theological Review, and both have extensive experience in teaching outside of the

United States and teaching on the subjects that are important to many of the people in our audience, and so we would invite you to join us.

In fact, the phones just started ringing as soon as I did that, and so we'll be talking with our callers here in just a moment.

I don't want to get you in trouble, Sam. I wouldn't mind getting Richard in trouble at all, but I can't think of anything in particular

I can get in a lot of trouble about. I got myself in a bunch of trouble two years ago this summer, as you probably know, and I did it quite honestly out of a commitment that I've had for many, many years, and that is a pastor friend of mine on Long Island asked me to come to his office, and we sat down, and he got a book out that I had in my library.

I'd used it as a resource, but I had not looked at it extensively, and he said, you know, this book was recommended to me by D.

A. Carson as a good response to the New Perspective on Paul, and yet I'm really confused here because in this chapter it sounds like he's suggesting that the imputational language is misleading and that the active and passive obedience concept really isn't a biblical concept, and it was based upon a misreading of the text, and so I'm really confused because this was recommended to me, and we sat down, and I talked with him a little bit about it, and over the next couple of weeks as I was teaching at Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary over in Mill Valley, I started blogging and doing a review of Mark Seyfried's book,

Christ Our Righteousness, one chapter. In fact, it wasn't even the full chapter. I quoted everything. Honestly, I don't know

Dr. Seyfried. I was very very much focused solely upon the question, are these terms, terms that we should be utilizing, what is being said here?

Well, that was a big political mistake. I have had people who I will not name contact me and say, you never should have attacked a fellow

Southern Baptist professor, and I'm like, attack? This book's been in print for four years.

It's been reviewed in jets. I mean, I haven't said anything that Guy Waters and J.

Ligon Duncan said, we knew about that stuff back in the 90s, but since I did it in a popular context rather than within the context of theological journals, even statements were written against me anonymously by certain seminaries, and today, honestly,

I don't think that that issue has even come close to any level of resolution.

It's just sort of sitting there, and to me, what I learned was, man,

I thought the whole reason we all do theology was for the edification of the saints, and silly me,

I got hit between the eyes by the amount of politics that exists within the theological realm, and I guess that should have been a given.

I guess I should have flipped the book over and said, hmm, teaches here, better keep mouth shut. I wouldn't do that, but that's probably the only meaningful lesson

I could have learned, but my question for you is not so much to comment on that, but the comment on the fact that we live in a day where political correctness, which we see out in our society, has unfortunately invaded even into the realms of theology, to where if you dare raise issues, especially within the context of the people that are supposed to be on, quote -unquote, your side, you're considered a troublemaker, and how can we in any meaningful way respond to the challenges to the gospel if we allow that kind of worldly attitude to come in?

Right. Well, that's a great question, James. Let me just talk about that for a little bit.

You know, it's important for people to know, and I know you've said this, that Mark Seifert is an opponent of the

New Perspective on Paul, that in his own mind, he's defending what he thinks is a more traditional understanding than the

New Perspective. You know, one of the, and this may seem a strange thing to say, but let me put it this way.

I think one of the reasons for the reaction actually, in some ways, has a silver lining, although I know you took a lot of heat for it, and it's that when you did point out some of the inconsistencies in Dr.

Seifert's position with the traditional doctrine of justification, one of the reasons for the reaction is the

Southern Seminary does take very seriously, and it was the pivot upon which the

Reformation of the place took place, the abstract of principles. And so part of the reaction actually, in a strange way, witnesses to how seriously they take their confessional commitment.

So I want to give them credit for that. At the same time, I do think it's important to point out places where even people that are trying to defend the truth may have given some things away.

Who was it? Kuyper once talked about apologetics as not advancing the cause of truth one step, and what he was saying by that was, it seemed like the first thing most apologists did was retreat and try to build their bunker and their defense lines someplace, and give away ground to error and heresy.

And I think it's important to be able to say, hey, this particular place,

I think someone's giving away something that's part of the traditional doctrine of justification, an important part of it, and we need to make sure that just because he's on our side in some sense, we don't allow this particular view of justification to become widespread or to accept it as commonplace or acceptable.

Yeah. You know, the thing that got me in trouble, and I remember exactly which article it was, was a brief mention where I quoted

Boyce, and I quoted the abstract of Systematic Theology, and it was one sentence, quite literally.

I quoted what Boyce said, and I said, it seems to me that Boyce had a much wider acceptance, or I forget what the terminology was,

I used understanding of the passive and active obedience of Christ distinction than Dr.

Seifert does. And I think that, I mean, when I mentioned that to J. Ligon Duncan, he laughed and said, well, of course.

I mean, it was a given. It was like, well, no one would argue with that. And in fact, Guy Watters in his book on New Perspectivism makes mention when he mentions

Dr. Seifert's book. He says the same things I did, but somehow I did it in the wrong context, I guess, and the results were pretty sad.

Like I said, I had one professor contact me and say, I'm never going to have you work with me on a writing project again because you've done this.

And then I asked him a question, have you read what I wrote? And he had to admit he had not.

That was probably to me the most disappointing thing in the whole episode was the majority of the people who weighed in never actually read what

I wrote. They went on secondhand information. And that was difficult. No two ways about it. Well, yeah, and I read what you wrote and we had some conversation about it.

You know, Dr. Seifert is actually on my committee. That's why you're telling the folks that you're putting me in a...

I didn't want to put you in that situation. Yeah, I have read,

I think, most, if not all of what Dr. Seifert had written as of a couple of years ago.

And, you know, he and I are friends at some level, I think.

I'd like to think we are. One time he actually said to me, and this is an interesting anecdote, maybe your listeners will like it.

He said, you know, I don't know why we get along as well as we do, Sam, because you're about as Reformed as a

Baptist can be, and I'm about as Lutheran as a Baptist. But, you know, he has his own particular understanding of Luther.

And at a couple of places in my dissertation, we had to pretty emphatically agree to disagree about what

Luther means by some things. And I'm troubled by some of those things as well. You know, I do think that in his own way,

Dr. Seifert believes in Sola Fide, and of course that was the focus of my dissertation, not double imputation.

At the point of double imputation, I couldn't disagree that he says some things that are very troubling and I don't think are in accord with the

Reformed and Protestant tradition. Yeah, and I think we need to have the ability to make that statement and then invite response.

The problem was I never got any response other than a shotgun blast to the forehead, and that's what just made me go, wow,

I don't understand this, but, you know, if that's what it's going to take, that's what it's going to take.

Hey, we have calls on the line, and one of these sounds suspicious to me because it's from Ridgecrest, California.

I wonder why someone from Ridgecrest, California would be calling named

Lynn. Let's talk to Lynn. Hi, Lynn, how are you? Hi there, James. Now, let's make sure, because we're running this through a phone system,

Sam, Richard, can you hear Lynn? Yeah, it's kind of muffled. Okay. Hi, Richard.

Hey, Lynn, how are you doing? Doing good. Hi, Dr. Waldron. Good to hear you, Lynn. The first thing

I'd like to say is that California is closer to falling into the Pacific Ocean since Richard Barcellos moved to Kentucky.

Could you explain why that is, however? Because Richard is not the biggest guy, so it's not like he was weighing it down or anything.

Well, in terms of his intellect and his philosophical, theological, and political views, he counts for at least 2 ,000 men much bigger than him.

I thought it was just because of his being a Fresno State football fan. Friday night, 7 o 'clock,

ESPN2. You mean you can watch Fresno State football in Kentucky?

I'm going to watch it in Omaha, Nebraska and go to the Nebraska game the next day. Hey, I wanted to ask a question about the new perspective and the federal vision.

Am I simplifying the matter too much to say or to observe that the new perspective errs with respect to the objective nature of the gospel, the active and passive obedience of Christ, for example, and the federal vision errs with respect to the subjective nature of the gospel?

In other words, they downplay or don't recognize the necessity of regeneration and faith.

Would that be an oversimplification? Hey, you're my guest.

I'm letting you handle these things. I'm telling Richard he should be responding to this, but he's sitting there staring at the computer screen, so let me give him a minute to think.

There's a lot of truth in what you've said, Lynn, but it does seem a little bit of an oversimplification to me because there are facets of the new perspective that are like the federal vision in that they emphasize community and corporate aspects of what they call justification, and that's more objective, too, in a sense.

And then it's true that there's not a sufficient subjective influence in the federal vision as well.

Richard, do you want to respond to that? Lynn, when you mentioned the federal vision, were you talking about their tendency, at least in some of them, to apply the terms of the ordo salutis to all baptized infants?

Yes. Okay, and so you would see that you're saying that they're discrediting the need for any subjective work of the

Spirit in the heart and soul because of that? Yes.

Okay, now of course you know if you sit them down and talk to them, they believe that souls need to be regenerated.

Yeah, amen. I'm observing the tendency of both systems.

It seems to me that if you could boil down the tendency of both systems, it's that they both turn out to be errors with respect to certain aspects of the doctrine of salvation.

It seems to me that the new perspective errs with respect to the passive and active obedience of Christ and the federal vision guys.

I know they're different, and I understand that they would recoil at the accusation that they teach a system that doesn't require faith in Christ, and yet that seems to be the tendency of that doctrine.

Yeah, and you know you're not the first to make that observation. I'm not going to say the name

I'm thinking because it could be wrong, but I know that there are Presbyterians that have critiqued the federal vision men and either accused them or asked the question whether or not they have become sacramentalists because through the sacrament of baptism, or as a result of that, they'll automatically use all of the terms of the

Ordo Salutis and apply them to everyone that's baptized. Right. And so you know the form of presumptive regeneration and the whole thing.

It's a little bit strange to me because you read the Knox Seminary Colloquium with regard to the federal vision and Auburn Avenue theology, you see the name

Norm Shepard all over in the footnotes, and one of Norm Shepard's avowed concerns in his writings on justification, what's his book called?

Call of Grace. Is the danger of easy believism and a desire to situate saving faith somehow in sanctification and assert that it's part and parcel of the whole work of sanctification and that sanctification both proceeds and follows it?

And you would think from that avowed concern that he says is behind his writing, that's one of the things, that this would be contrary to the kind of objectifying tendency of the federal vision.

I'm not quite sure how to put those two things together. Yeah, I think anyone who listens to the debate that I did with Doug Wilson in November of 2004 has to recognize that this concern came out of, you listen to that original

Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church conference which really gave rise to this whole explosion of this movement, and everyone was saying this is a pastoral issue, this is a pastoral issue, we need to be able to deal with individuals on a pastoral level, we need to stop trying to look through the lens of election, we need to start looking through the lens of the covenant.

Well, what's been the result of that? Aside from the fact that, and I'd be interested in getting you guys' opinions on this, it seems to me that the federal vision movement is splintering into a number of different camps and flavors along the way, which

I sort of expected, but the result of that is Douglas Wilson staying in a debate against me saying Roman Catholics are brothers and sisters in Christ, but they're going to hell.

And for most believers, that's just difficult to,

I mean, they're being consistent, because you grab them by their baptism, how do you debate a Roman Catholic?

You grab them by their baptism, call them to faithfulness to the covenant that they have been issued into by their

Trinitarian baptism, and they're trying to be consistent there, but all I've got to do is point out, do you hear what you're saying?

You in essence are saying that even though these people believe in a false gospel, they're still our brothers and sisters in Christ, but they're not living faithfully to that covenant and they're not regenerate as a result.

And so what does that mean to be in Christ and all these other things come together? And it just seems to me that the federal vision folks came to the conclusions that end up objectifying justification the way that they're doing it from a completely different direction.

It's like they came from 180 degrees opposite of the new perspective, but they end up at the same spot wondering what in the world they're doing with these other people.

Now, I have seen personally many conservative individuals, conservative reformed individuals who have, by following the thoughts of the federal vision into that area, have then got into the new perspective and now they have a sub -reformed view of scripture and a sub -reformed view of all sorts of things, and that was the avenue that took them into that movement.

They wouldn't have gone that way before, but once they got into the federal vision and into that objectifying and I would say sacramentalism of, you know, when

Douglas Wilson stands there and that very first one says, if you call your children to repent and believe, you're questioning

God's promise in baptism. When you stand up there and do that, I'm sorry, how else is that to be interpreted? You can put all the fine spins on that you want, but what is it saying?

You know, that's really the issue. So I feel like saying, and I will, you know,

I think that one of the reasons the whole federal vision thing is going to splinter is because in some respects the

Westminster Confession itself, and I'm speaking as a Baptist, kind of sets them up for this whole problem.

In the Westminster Confession, the original version of course, you have infant baptism justified on the basis of the

Old Testament, you have a state church, and you have those kind of issues that seem to be treated on the basis, using the paradigm of Old Testament Israel, and I think lay a basis for this tendency to go in a kind of objectifying direction that moves away from what are staunchly evangelical convictions.

On the other hand, the Westminster Confession and its doctrine of credible profession for the

Lord's table and the way it looks at the judicial law, only bringing over its general equity, and of course the whole doctrine of salvation, is very evangelical.

And I wonder sometimes if there isn't some basis in historic Presbyterianism for some vulnerability on this issue.

Right. Okay, Lynn, thank you very much for your phone call today. You're welcome. All right, God bless. Bye -bye. Let's press on here and talk with Brian over in Savannah, Georgia.

Hi, Brian. Hey, Dr. White. How are you guys doing today? I'm doing well. Got a question for you.

Make sure to speak up nice and loud so our brothers in Owensboro can hear you. Sure. I teach a

Sunday school class, and we were talking about 1 Timothy chapter 3, basically verse 15, where Paul says, you know,

I write to you so that you may conduct how you ought to conduct yourself in the house of God, which is the church of the living

God, the pillar and the ground of the truth. When a guy like Billy Graham, in the latest

Newsweek cover article, basically says, look, and this has kind of been his stance for years, that, you know, almost this wider mercy that you can be a good

Muslim or a good Buddhist or a good Hindu, and that God basically, you know, He's going to let you into heaven.

And then when he also is quoted in the article as saying that, I don't believe that every jot and tittle, I'm not a literalist, every jot and tittle comes from Jesus Christ.

You know, in a lot of places, he's really revered in a total class.

If there are different shades of saying what the gospel is in that kind of manner, because when he speaks publicly like that, unfortunately, it carries a lot of weight.

But what would the Apostle Paul have to say about that kind of teaching? Doesn't it really, to me, distort the gospel?

If we as the church are to uphold the truth, that's not the truth. And my question to you all, you know, of course, when anybody criticizes

Billy Graham, for them, it's like, wrongly, you know, you've done worse than blaspheme the

Holy Spirit. I said, no, you know, we need to be critical thinkers. I think it was John MacArthur who said the church has lost their discernment, you know, either through indifference or ignorance.

And people don't want to evaluate even what Billy Graham has been saying since the 50s. I think in Ian Murray's book,

Evangelicalism Divided, as he goes back to the crusades and the effect it even had on the

Church of England. And of course, we see the effect of that now in Europe, as the Muslim faith has grown leaps and bounds, as they have gone away from the truth.

Primarily, not by conversion, but by immigration in that particular situation. And the fact that those people are not reproducing.

But that being said, gentlemen, I'll give you the first shot at this, because that's what happens when you're a guest.

I think Billy Graham's statements are tragic. I'd like to think better of Billy Graham, but, you know, one can't...

I don't know how you can read what he's saying and think that he understands the exclusivity of the

Gospel, you know, at all. So one hopes better for his heart than his head, but it's tragic to see that kind of thing.

You know, I tend to think that this kind of inclusivism flows directly, or at least logically, out of Arminianism and its emphasis that everybody deserves a fair chance.

And certainly, I think Billy Graham has ministered in a way that has been built primarily on Arminian principles.

I think he needs to listen to his son more. Do you think, guys,

I don't know... Not on everything, but something. I don't know if this is possible to answer this or not. What is more wrathful, if you will, to God, someone who is just in open hostility and rebellion, an unbeliever, or someone in the position of a

Billy Graham, or even us as a Sunday school teacher, or you guys for mishandling and misrepresenting, no matter what our meaning is, the

Gospel? There's no question that the Scriptures lay out the principle, let not many of you be teachers, because you have the stricter judgments.

And when you put yourself in that position, I think part of this, to be perfectly honest with you, is due to the degradation of the view in the church, of the pulpit, and the primacy of preaching, and the ministry of preaching.

Billy Graham, I'm sure, has remained a member of a church, but that's different than being under the authority of a church, and having individuals around you in a plurality of eldership, where there can be some accountability and some balance brought to bear in regards to the substance of your presentation and your message.

And I think we see an illustration in this situation of why that is important, and why the degradation of the view of the church in evangelicalism can lead to this kind of a situation.

And so I would agree with you that the inclusivism that has become inherent in Billy Graham's message, and that really wasn't all that hidden all along, but just simply wasn't as,

I think, as clearly open as it has become in the past number of years,

I think that that type of inclusivism is very, very dangerous.

And it is not biblical, it's not defensible, and it is exceptionally dangerous in regards to the fact that if you believe that he somehow is a theological expert, then you're going to be very subject to the inclusivists that have basically taken over publishing at the

InterVarsity Press, and the Gregory Boyds, and the John Sanders, and the

Clark Pinnocks, and all the rest of them that are out there. And isn't it ironic, I suppose I should just throw this out here and get you guys' comment as we screen another phone call.

Isn't it ironic that Clark Pinnock and N .T. Wright were once conservative, inerrantist, five -point

Calvinists? Yeah, amen. It is. And it means that there is a greater accountability, because at least, assumedly, they knew what they were talking about then, and they rejected it.

Yeah. Hey, thank you very much, Brian. I appreciate your phone call. Before we go to our next caller,

Sam, have you heard D .A. Carson's lectures on New Perspectivism, where he gives some of the personal background of his relationship with N .T.

Wright? No, I haven't. I'd like to. I've read some of his other stuff on the issue of imputation and so forth, but not that.

At one point, he talks about having, while he was at, well, Carson was at Cambridge, and Wright was trying to get into Oxford, as I recall.

And he had contacted Wright, whom he had known, and asked him to contribute to a book that they were writing, in essence, on inerrancy.

And at the time, Wright had declined, because basically, he said it would completely mess up any chance he might have of getting into Oxford if he did it.

And since then, according to Carson, Wright refers to inerrancy as that silly

American doctrine. And again, when you look at where these folks have gone, now

Clark Pennock, of course, does make N .T. Wright look like a conservative evangelical, but he would make anyone look like a conservative evangelical today, given the positions that he espouses.

But both were once right where, well, where we are.

And I it sobers me, too, because, and it's hard to understand, because I think that where we are, in terms of our understanding of the

Doctrine of Scripture and why we have to hold it, is the only consistent position, and the only place from which it really can be defended.

No question. So, and so when people reject that, well, it's not surprising that they keep adopting one air, and there's this downhill slide that you see you can almost trace in Clark Pennock's writing.

Oh, yes. Yeah, you can. It's a sad but fascinating study in apostasy. Let's run real quickly here over to Mark in Atlanta.

Hi, Mark. Hey, good afternoon, gentlemen. How are you, sir? Pretty good. You? Your voice sounds nice and strong.

I bet you the gentleman can hear you quite well. Fine. Thank you. Okay, great. Just quick question.

Not exactly sure how to phrase this, but dealing with the abstract of principles, so, you know, is it a valid understanding of that to say, as long as I understand it the way

I understand it, I can sign off on, for seminary professors, for example, I can sign off on the abstract of principles, because I can't really know what voice actually meant by it, or, you know, anybody else's interpretation, and, you know, for example, a three -point

Calvinist who can only affirm, or who can't really affirm the three points as a Calvinist would affirm it, but as they understand it, is that a valid understanding, and how and why is it accepted seems to be so often.

Can I respond to that, James? Well, that certainly isn't the way it's understood at Southern Seminary.

I've heard this story from Al Mohler's lips a couple of times. Early on in his tenure as president there, he had a committee of faculty members come and tell him he couldn't do the things that he was doing, and he couldn't begin to discipline and get rid of some of the liberal and neo -Orthodox professors they had there, and if I understand the story right, they said to him, well, and he was basing this on the abstract of principles, and they were saying, well, you really can't know what the abstract of principles means.

You know, there's all sorts of interpretive things you have to do to it, and in our day, you have to cut people all sorts of slack, because it's really not clear, and Al Mohler sat there looking at them, and they said, well, what do you think of that?

He said, you're fired, and the representative of the committee said, you can't fire us.

Our contracts don't permit you to fire us, and Mohler said, well, that's a matter of interpretation. It's really not so clear as I read it, so that's not the standpoint of Southern Seminary.

I think they are endeavoring to take the abstract of principles seriously. That's not to say they're perfectly consistent, but it is to say that they don't adopt that kind of approach.

In fact, they emphatically don't adopt that approach to the abstract of principles. I think, in my experience,

I don't think anyone would have wanted to have at least debated me on one point, and that is if Boyce addresses in his systematic theology, his abstract systematic theology, an issue that is then found in the abstract themselves, you can at least make a semi -decent argument that his understanding probably is what lies behind that, and that it would be pretty difficult to argue that if you take the opposite of his understanding, that you're being overly consistent, but you know what concerns me a whole lot more, and we're almost out of time, and Mark, because it increases the sound on the line,

I'll go ahead and let you go. Thank you for your call today. One thing that really does concern me, and I am still teaching in a

Southern Baptist Seminary, I'll be teaching this January in apologetics for Golden Gate, amazingly enough.

I really enjoy doing that, and the students do too, but as you know, everybody has to sign a statement that says that you will not teach contrary to the

Baptist faith and message, and the Baptist faith and message itself is a difficult document, simply because it has been modified so many times from so many different contexts and perspectives that it is fairly easy to argue for all sorts of different contexts, and it's difficult to figure out, well, did this phrase come from here, or did it come from over here, and what was the reason it was inserted, and all the rest of that stuff, but the thing that has really concerned me, and we're almost out of time, so I'll have to be brief here, is, you know, it seems to me that the big issue that everyone touts is, we won the battle, and now everybody has to believe in inerrancy, but you know what?

I know folks who teach in Southern Baptist Seminaries who sign that statement, and if that's their doctrine of inerrancy,

I don't really recognize it historically. I just don't know that the battle was won.

I think the opposing army did an end around and took over the supply lines, and is that something that you would comment on briefly?

Sure. Well, I can't speak for any other Southern Baptist Seminary than Southern, because my origins aren't

Southern Baptist. I'm a Yankee and just moved down here. I can say that it was amazing to me that matriculating at Southern Seminary, its doctrinal program, only eight years after Mueller had become president, and having grown up a fundamentalist, and I think being pretty sensitive to the whole issue of inerrancy and what it means, at least at Southern Seminary, I never smelled the whiff of liberalism on the doctrine of inerrancy.

That's good to hear, and I hope that they can continue pressing that direction. I know there are tremendous pressures upon them to go in the direction.

Gentlemen, thank you very, very much for a very enlightening hour. I appreciate your participation. If anyone wants to get hold of you,

I imagine they can do so through the Midwest Center for Theological Studies. That's MCTSowensboro .org,

and Sam Waldron, Richard Braselis, thank you very much for being my guest today. Thank you. All right.

God bless, brethren, and thank you very much for joining us as well here on The Dividing Line.

We'll be back on Thursday afternoon, four o 'clock. God bless. Crossroads, can't let this moment slip away.

We must contend for the faith our fathers fought for. We need a new reformation day.

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